[ Tolstoy, Leo ].

Tolstoi’s Love Letters. With a study on the autobiographical elements in Tolstoi’s work by Paul Biryukov. Translated from the Russian by S[amuel] S[olomonovitch] Koteliansky and Virginia Woolf.

Richmond [Surrey, England]: The Hogarth Press, 1923. First edition, printed in an edition of 1,000 copies. “There is a secondary binding in grass-green cloth with white paper label on spine similar to the noted above. Mr. Leonard Woolf does not recall the reason for this, but thinks that the paper, of Czechoslovak origin, may have run out and that the later copies were bound in the green-grass cloth which was used originally for the spine only.”. Spine lightly faded. Some chipping/toning to spine label. Mild shelf wear to board edges. Light marginalia markings and underlining to first section. Small label to front paste-down from bookstore in Middlesex. A good + copy. Publisher’s red and green diamond pattern over white paper boards. Green cloth spine with white printed paper label. XV, [1 blank], 17-134 pp, 6 pp. of publisher’s ads, p [6] blank. Item #17985

In a preface to the present work, Tolstoy’s personal associate and biographer Paul Biryukov explains the contentious nature of the love letters, which Tolstoy disclosed to him in the course of his biographical research, but which Tolstoy’s wife, Sophie Andreevna, initially forbade Biryukov to publish. By the time Biryukov published the third edition of volume one of the Tolstoy biography, Andreevna had died, and Biryukov was free to do with the letters what he liked. He published them in full, and the present work’s translations are drawn directly from the third edition of the first volume. The section titled “The Autobiographical Elements in Tolstoi’s Works” is a short character study conducted by Biryukov as a result of direct conversations with Tolstoy and his famil.

Kirkpatrick B3.

Price: $350.00